


In Dreams

by cloudcraft



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Dreams, Dreamsharing, Gen, Harm to Animals, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 23:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4897102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudcraft/pseuds/cloudcraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gon and Killua try shared dreaming on Greed Island. After that, dreaming alone isn't quite the same. Gon POV. Includes scenes taking place during Greed Island, Chimera Ant, and post-Election arcs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Before you go running to Hunterpedia: yes, I totally made up a fake Greed Island card.

Gon woke up early one morning to go back to the Miasmatic Cave and defeat the Lamia again. He expected her to be mad, but instead she just rolled all six of her eyes the moment he surfaced from the Toxic Subterranean Passage into her lair. 

"Somehow I had a feeling you'd be back," she sighed, slithering to the side to reveal her pile of treasure. "I don't want to waste my morning respawning, just take it and leave."

"Really?" He smiled to hide his disappointment. A part of him had been excited to see if he could beat her without Killua's help. His body still thrummed with excited energy. He'd just have to work extra hard at Bisky's training today to burn it all off. 

On his way out, he summoned his binder and produced a lemon cake card from his free slots. They had way too many dessert cards, he explained. The Lamia smiled and leaned down to accept a hug around her scaled shoulders. 

 

Back at the camp, Killua was already up and munching on a blueberry frosting tart. He sat beside last night's fire, which he'd rekindled and placed a roasting grill on top. Three leaf-wrapped bundles sat atop the wire. When Gon sat down beside him, Killua smirked and eyed him sideways. 

"You really wanted an extra set of the Dream Coins, didn't you." 

"Ehh, how did you know? Was it that obvious?" 

"I had a hunch. Plus I used a Sightvision to double check." Killua shrugged and popped the last bite of the tart in his mouth. "How was the Lamia?" His words were muffled by chunks of cake and frosting.

"She gave it to me for free. Said she didn't feel like fighting again." 

"Ch, lame. At least she didn't make you miss breakfast." Killua reached onto the grill and plucked one of the bundles from the fire. He shook it out for a few moments to cool it down, his fingertips impervious where Gon's would burn. Gon felt like he could know Killua his whole life and he'd never see all of the tricks up his sleeves. 

"You're really cool, Killua." Gon accepted the cooled-down package and unwrapped it, digging right in.

"Well duh. Let me see the card." 

Gon paused between bites of sweet potato to summon his binder and hand Killua his extra copy of Shared Dream Coins. Sinking his teeth into the potato's soft gold flesh, he watched Killua's eyes skim over the card description. Gon knew it from memory: "Place a coin under your pillow to share your dreams with anyone else who does the same. Five coins included." 

"So how does it work?" Killua flipped the card over as if the explanation continued on the back. "How do you control whose dreams you go into?"

"Not sure," Gon said. "I thought we'd just try it and find out."

If Gon hadn't been looking for it, he might not have caught the change in expression that rippled across Killua's face like a gust of wind, unsettled for one moment and then gone. He swallowed his mouthful of potato. 

"Once I had a nightmare that the grass outside my house was actually really sharp and I couldn't run down the hill without stabbing my feet," he said. Killua snorted.

"That's pretty stupid." 

"Yeah. So if we end up in a weird dream like that, let's just remember that we're in a dream and go somewhere else." 

"Do you know how to do that?" Killua asked. 

"No," Gon admitted. "But we'll be together, right? We'll figure it out somehow." 

Killua opened his mouth to say something, then shut it before the words could escape. He turned his face so Gon couldn't see and reached for his second breakfast. 

 

That night, after a grueling day of training, they nestled in their sleeping bags and rolled to face one another. Killua's hair was still damp from taking a bath in the river. Everything else in the forest was dark but Killua's pale skin and bright eyes caught the moonlight for them. It was enough light to see the expression on his face: anxious but excited. Mostly excited. 

Gon murmured the binder command and used Gain on the Shared Dream Coins. A small cloth pouch appeared in a puff of smoke and landed in Gon's open palm. The coins within clinked against one another. 

"What did Bisky say when you asked if she wanted to join us?" Killua whispered. Bisky's tent was far enough that there was no need to keep their voices down, but it felt right to speak softly in the darkness. Gon pulled the drawstring on the pouch and shook two coins into his hands.

"She said that we were way too young to be appearing in her dreams and to be careful," Gon whispered back. He passed Killua one coin. "Don't know what there is to be careful about." 

"Maybe she's worried that you've got some messed up dreams." Killua wriggled his arm out of his sleeping bag to accept it. 

"They're pretty normal." Gon took his remaining coin and slipped it beneath his pillow. "Last night I had a dream that I was a flower and I fell in love with a butterfly." 

"Gon," Killua said solemnly. "That's the dorkiest thing I've ever heard." 

Even as he closed his eyes, Gon could tell that Killua was smiling. 

 

Gon had assumed that he would fall asleep first. Most other nights, it was like that. So when he found himself alone on a sandy beach, he wasn't concerned. Killua would be along soon. Picking up a stick from the surf, he began to follow the shoreline. It wasn't quite like Whale Island because the cliff shapes were all wrong, but he could hear the kites crying over the bluffs. He wanted to be up there too. 

He took a step and felt himself drifting towards an undetermined destination, the way that dream bodies do, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was warm and grounded him to the sand.

"Killua." Gon brightened. There was never any doubt. Dream or reality, Gon would know him anywhere. When he turned to look, Killua was wearing his old turtleneck and t-shirt, rather than the clothes he fell asleep in.

"Where were you trying to run off to?" 

"Not trying. I don't remember. Let's go." 

He took Killua's hand and started to wind down the beach with him. The waves lapped at their bare feet. Pebble-sized crabs dove in and out of tiny pockets in the sand. 

"So what do you want to do?" 

"Don't know. Seems like a waste to share dreams just to walk around on the beach." 

"We could try flying. Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you realize you're dreaming?" 

"But we can fly in real life with nen." 

This was a very good point. Gon opened his mouth to say something, but the crash of a wave silenced him. The water was already up to their shins. How long had they been walking for the tide to come in so fast? 

"Hey, let's try this." 

Gon tugged Killua deeper into the water. The waves lapped up against his knees. Somehow, the water didn't feel warm or cold on his legs. It fact, none of the sensations he normally felt seemed to register. Could he usually feel temperature in dreams? Could he smell? Impossible to answer. More than any of these things, Gon was conscious of the familiar presence on the other side of his hand. 

"Think there's anything down there?" Suddenly, Killua was in front of him. That wasn't a problem. Gon still had his hand. 

They walked farther out into the ocean, waist deep, then chest deep. 

"There's got to be." 

Before he realized it, his head was completely submerged. He turned to Killua, whose hair floated out from his skull like an anemone. Gon laughed. Apparently he could do that underwater. 

"Your eyes are so blue," Gon observed. 

Killua laughed too. It echoed through the water like the sound of singing in the shower. He swung a punch at Gon and his fist trailed in slow motion through the water. Gon eel-slipped his body to the side and dove deeper. Killua took a second longer to get off his feet, but he rocketed ahead as soon as he did. 

There were all sorts of things on the bottom of the ocean. Sunken ships, underwater forests, fish people, shark people, a tower that started at the bottom of a trench and shot up past the surface and into the sky. Killua had just found a way in when Gon woke up. 

The morning sun was bright in his eyes. His fingers were wrapped around Killua's. Both of them had twisted in their sleeping bags to bring their hands together in the waking world. Killua was already awake. As soon as he saw that Gon was too, he bolted upright and dragged Gon with him. 

"Did you find the key to the tower window?!"

"No, I woke up too! There was a lock??" 

Bisky found them a few minutes later, eyes squeezed shut and trying their best to get back to sleep. 

 

After leaving Greed Island, Gon started to have trouble sleeping. Some nights Killua would be the one to fall asleep first. 

"You can't sleep without me there to dream with you," Killua teased in the morning. "Come on, you can handle the meat monster yourself." 

But it wasn't the meat monster, or any of the other strange denizens of Gon's dreams. He just couldn't bring himself to sleep through the night. Sometimes he watched Killua nodding off ahead of him. Killua never snored or talked in his sleep, but sometimes his nose twitched. If he was really comfortable, he drooled. Gon wondered what the sleeping Killua saw. On the bad nights, he wondered if Kite was dreaming too. 

When Gon finally got to sleep, he was in a hot air balloon. He'd had this dream before, but he wouldn't realize it until he woke up. Oblivious to the repetition, he walked to all four corners of the basket. He was all alone and the balloon was sinking and there was a tall mountain range in the distance. He needed to cross that range. There was something important on the other side. 

First, he tugged on the rope in the middle, expecting flames to burst up from the burner. They didn't, even though they were supposed to. (Were they? He'd never been in a hot air balloon before.) 

Next, he began to unload ballast. He picked up the large burlap sacks on the floor and sides of the basket and threw them overboard, watching them plummet to the ground. Some were heavy and some were light. Some jangled with coins and some squished sickeningly in his hands. With every load that went over the side, the balloon climbed higher and higher. Soon he reached the birds. 

Giant storm petrels, the kind that migrated over the island after breeding season, soared above and around him. One broke off from its formation and swooped low alongside the basket. It beat its wings once, twice. Turn back, it said. 

No, Gon said. I need to cross these mountains. There's somebody waiting. 

Bad winds, it said. It banked to the side and pulled up sharp to perch on the side of the basket. Gon approached it. 

It spread its massive grey wings. Turn back. 

Gon reached out, his arms viper-fast. His fingers closed around the bird's thick, downy neck and snapped it in an instant. The bird's corpse fell to the bottom of the basket with none of its living grace. Gon could hear its flock mates stirring behind and above him. 

He lifted the petrel by its slender legs and heaved it into open air. It would only weigh the balloon down. He needed to get over the mountains. Somebody was waiting for him and he was already late. 

 

Sometimes when Gon woke up, he caught Killua watching him. Killua was really good at shutting his eyes just in time and controlling his breathing, but Gon could tell when he was faking. He rolled over and pretended to go back to sleep. He'd already forgotten most of what he'd dreamed, though he knew he'd dreamed it before. Something about flying, something about birds. 

 

Upon his second return to Whale Island, Gon found that sleep came easier than before. He could only explain it as the mental taxation of studying for the first time in ages. After an evening of compositional exertion, it only took him a few minutes to drop off into slumber. The last thing he remembered thinking about was whether or not he could find a skateboard at the port market. 

 

He was back on Greed Island again, on one of the dusty desert plateaus somewhere between Antokiba and Masadora. The clouds parted to let the sun shine down on the cliff, illuminating a white-haired boy standing on the edge. Gon sprinted forward but his arms closed around empty air. Puffs of cloud dissolved around him and floated up to join their friends in the sky. And with only pieces of cloud to stay his momentum, he tipped forward and off the cliff. 

What was a cloud doing so close to the ground? Gon wondered. Maybe it wasn't meant to be there in the first place. 

He landed on his palms and feet. The dirt crunched under the impact. Brushing himself off, he pulled his binder from his pocket (strange, was that how he carried it before?) and flipped through. 

Accompany. Magnetic Force. Even Contact would be fine. But every page was filled with nothing but Bubble Horses. Cover to cover, nine slots a page of beady little eyes stared up at him. Gon groaned aloud and threw the book to the ground. 

Without any useful spells, Gon was left to traverse the island on foot. He walked to Dorias and Limeiro and Soufrabi, though some part of him knew they couldn't be so close to one another. No matter where he went, he was completely alone. No players contacted him, no monsters ambushed him. There weren't even any NPCs in the towns, nor open shops from which to buy spell cards. He began to wish that he had brought a Bubble Horse for company. 

He found himself in the grasslands. He should have been near the entrance point where Eeta worked but he couldn't find the building. There was no tower to climb, no cave to explore. So he laid flat on his back in the grass, gazing up at the cloud-strewn sky. 

The longer he stared, the more he felt that he sky was moving farther away. The grass seemed to grow up around him. Or was he getting smaller? Gon closed his eyes and let the earth envelop him. 

 

Waking up left him confused and, for some reason, hungry. Gon ignored both of these feelings and slid out of bed towards the window. The blue sky beckoned him, not a cloud to be seen. A cool western wind all but pulled the panels from his hands once he unfastened the lock. Heeding the wind's call, he clambered out over the windowsill and swung himself up the side of the house. His fingers found old grooves in the wood that carried him up to the roof. 

Settling onto the ridge where the two halves of the roof met, Gon realized that he had never brought Killua up here. There were better lookout trees nearby, but on a clear day he could see the harbor from his roof. This was one such day. 

He spotted ships in port, probably unloading goods for morning market. The wind whipped the tops of the trees and Gon breathed deep, imagining where the wind had come from and what it had seen. Something deep inside of him ached but he didn't know what to call it. Down below, the ships' sails bobbed like small ice floes on the water.


End file.
